Thin Lines
by iavine
Summary: AU "In The Line of Duty" and "Family". Sam and Jolinar centric; SG-1, Bra'tac, Apophis and a few others have their parts. Some dialogue taken from episodes; assumes familiarity with canon events in both ItLoD and Family. WIP.
1. Chapter 1

**Thin Lines  
** Chapter 1

 _AU of 'In The Line Of Duty'._

* * *

The agony of the _hara'kesh_ washed through Jolinar and she endured, her focus narrowing to her host, to the chance she might be able to save Samantha from sharing Jolinar's fate.

A sound cut through her concentration. _Gunshot._

A fraction of a second later, the hara'kesh was silenced.

.s.g.1.

Steven was, like his fellow SFs here at the SCG, one of the best of the best. His position had been furthest from the door when the goa'uld – the _ashrak_ – showed up, and he'd had just a tiny fraction of a second more time to react.

He'd ducked.

It hadn't been fast enough or far enough to fully evade the effects of the device, but when Steven hit the floor, he was not quite unconscious. Through the haze of pain, he saw the goa'uld rip apart the bars to the cell and turn the device on Captain Carter and Jolinar.

Pain.

Don't let it stop you.

Use it.

He didn't have the strength for his MP5, but his fingers closed over his sidearm. Both his hands were needed but he lifted it, flicked off the safety, pulled the trigger.

 _Pain._

.s.g.1.

Jack and Teal'c heard the gunshot ring out as they burst onto level 16 and ran towards the one occupied cell. It's door was open and they both stopped as they took in the scene.

The two SF's were down, one had his sidearm out. The ashrak was down, killed by a bullet to the head. Sam was kneeling on the floor of the cell, her head in her hands, almost whimpering in abject agony.

There was blood and bits of brain and skull splattered over the cell.

.s.g.1.

Sam had welcomed the sharp but tiny pain from Janet's needle and fallen gratefully into oblivion to escape the torment lingering from the ashrak's assault. She woke in the infirmary, still with a monster headache but able to think clearly. ** _Jolinar?_ **

"Carter."

"Sam?"

She supposed she'd moved or something, and given away that she was awake. Prying her eyelids open a little, she caught a blurry glimpse of the infirmary. "Sir," she mumbled, the effort triggering a coughing fit. Someone slipped a hand under her head, lifting her just enough to sip water from a cup and when she finally got her eyes open again, she found herself looking into Janet's worried gaze. "Hey," she managed softly before focusing on the two males hovering at Janet's shoulder. "Daniel!"

As Janet stepped back to put down the water, Daniel eased forward and grasped Sam's hand. Jack's expression was inscrutable. "You did it Sam…You won."

"Jolinar..."

"It's gone," Daniel said softly, chafing her chilled fingers with his own. "You're free again."

"No."

"Carter..."

Janet returned, gently brushing stray blond wisps from Sam's forehead. "Sam, we were able to pick up separate signals. The parasite faded right out… it flatlined half an hour ago."

Sam shut her eyes. ** _Jolinar,**_ she whispered into the silence ** _I'm sorry.**_

There was no answer.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thin Lines  
** Chapter 2

 _AU of 'In The Line Of Duty'._

* * *

Janet set the latest x-ray print beside the previous four and bit her lip. There was no change. Jolinar's delicate spine remained as crisp and clear as in the very first, recorded only hours after she had apparently died.

Apparently.

She carefully slid the prints back into the envelope and picked up the file folder to replace the envelope in it. A single sheet of paper slipped free and fell to the floor. Janet picked it up and sighed as she stared at the black-and-white scribed lines of ECG. The alien pattern was unlike any human one… but she had only one logical interpretation for the way it degraded and slowed until it collapsed into nothing.

.s.g.1.

Samantha. Jolinar had called her Samantha and now 'Sam' sat awkwardly when she thought of herself, like an ill-fitting garment. Doctor Frasier was pressing her again for permission to biopsy Jolinar's body.

Why couldn't they leave her alone?

.s.g.1.

"… since Captain Carter has not been cleared for active duty, I have assigned Lieutenant Wilson to SG1 for now."

"But -"

"Doctor Jackson, we only have twelve gate teams. I need you back out there. Now, there are several …"

Jack doodled, listening to Hammond list off their choices (the details of which were on the paper he was currently embellishing) without comment. Two weeks without off-world missions was more than he had expected and worried as he was about Carter, keeping the rest of SG1 idle was pointless.

.s.g.1.

Daniel gently shut the door to his office and dropped into her desk chair, the short reports on the three planets picked out for SG1's mission tomorrow tossed onto the table behind him. Pulling his glasses off, he pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. Hammond was right, they had to get back out there.

The image of Sha're rose up in his mind, her eyes brimming with tears.

He'd asked Sam if Jolinar had really known anything about Sha're. Sam had looked at him helplessly with a fresh set of tears in her eyes and answered: _"I don't know."_

He tried to remember her smile.

.s.g.1.

Teal'c carefully removed the spent candle from the holder, depositing the tiny remnant of wax in the bin. Taking a new candle from the cupboard, he placed it in the candle-holder and paced back to the mat where he preferred to _kel'no'reem_ and knelt. Lighting the new candle from the flame of one already lit, he returned the holder to its place in the pattern around him.

Each flame in its place, each shining steadily in the dark.

He waited until Samantha Carter took her place opposite him before speaking. "Jaffa are taught to think of the flames as representing the gods. I choose instead to regard them as symbols of hope."

"Hope." Sam echoed before a faint smile touched her pale face.

His return smile was equally faint and he waited, on the cusp of _kel'no'reem_ , until he saw his friend and team mate descend into the light meditative trance she'd learned. He hoped the oasis of calm that formed around them brought her some peace.


	3. Chapter 3

**Thin Lines  
** Chapter 3

 _AU of 'In The Line Of Duty'._

* * *

"… no sir, I don't have an explanation."

General Hammond regarded his CMO across his desk. "Speculation?"

Janet narrowed her eyes slightly, before sighing. "I would rather not, but it is almost like Jolinar's body is being kept from cellular decay. We have some medical examples of that happening in a pregnancy - lithopedion, where instead of the deceased fetus being broken down or expelled, it is instead preserved. But we're talking only a handful of cases across the entire world where that's happened, and none under modern medical care."

"Bottom line, Doctor. Can Captain Carter return to duty?"

"Sir…" Janet hesitated and bit her lip before continuing. "Carter's physical health, while anomalous, appears to be stable. She's certainly fit for any on base duty. But we have no idea of what might trigger a change and sending her off-world is a risk that we can not quantify."

.s.g.1.

Jack scowled at the retreating shape of Lieutenant Isaac Wilson. The kid had a stubborn streak a mile wide and a distinctly imperfect grasp on when to dig his heels in and when _not_ to argue with his CO.

"Jack."

"Daniel."

"It's only a scratch."

Teal'c, sitting one bed over and enduring his own post-mission check now Wilson was cleared, raised an eyebrow slightly. "A mere scratch does not require six stitches, Daniel Jackson."

"Seven stitches," muttered the junior doctor, his fingers deftly tying off the seventh.

Daniel gave his calf and the 'scratch' a sour glance. "The point is, it isn't serious."

.s.g.1.

"Daniel!" Sam planted herself in front of her ersatz team mate where he leaned against the wall just outside his office. "You look like you're about to fall over… Daniel?"

"Ah, uh, hi Sam!" He tried to smile and couldn't. It was taking all his attention to stay upright. "I… ummm…"

She looked down at him holding his injured leg off the ground and then sideways into his office, where a pair of crutches leaned on the wall. Looking back to his face, she considered his pallor and put her hand up to his (hot) forehead. "Don't move. I'm calling the infirmary."

It took a full three days of antibiotics before Daniel was allowed out of bed again.

.s.g.1.

Cassandra was a warm, comforting weight against Sam's side as they sat on Janet's couch and watched the end of Honey I Blew Up the Kid, and Sam craned her head around to see if Cassie, who hadn't moved in at least ten minutes, was asleep.

"Sam?"

Nope, not asleep. Sam groped for the remote, found it and silenced the TV. "I think it's almost bedtime."

"It's Saturday. I can stay up late."

Sam smiled and dropped a gentle kiss on Cassie's head. "Not _too_ late."

Cassie mumbled something and snuggled closer.

"Hmm?"

"I said, that was a silly movie."

"But you liked it."

"It wasn't scary."

"Did you want to watch a scary movie?"

"No!"

Sam tightened her arm around Cassie briefly. "It's ok then."

"Yeah…" Cassie was twiddling with a button on her pajamas and just as Sam opened her mouth to speak again, she blurted out a question. "Would Jolinar really have hurt me?"

Sam gaped, frozen for a long moment in shock. "Cassie…"

"Please!"

"No." Sam shut her eyes and concentrated on breathing. Just breathing. "No, Cassie. Jolinar wouldn't have hurt you. She just wanted to keep you safe and because of the ashrak, that meant keeping you away from her."

"The ashrak _was_ a goa'uld, wasn't it?"

"Yes. And it was hunting Jolinar. If you'd encountered it, it would have sensed the naquedah in your blood and killed you. Or if you'd been in the way." Sam's words were uneven, thick with emotion that just wouldn't let her go. "And that would have destroyed me. Cassie. I know Jolinar scared you… but I promise she hated doing it. But scaring you was better than seeing you get hurt."

"I'm sorry."

"Cassie…? Umm… what?"

"If I'd not told Jack about Jolinar, she would have gotten away and she'd still be alive. I'm _sorry,_ Sam."

"Oh, Cassie." Sam relaxed again and hugged Cassandra tight. "You have nothing to be sorry for. Despite how events turned out, you _did the right thing_." Her voice cracked, and she fought the lump in her throat. "Please, believe me. _Promise_ you'll do it again if you ever sense another symbiote in someone."

"Okay. I promise, Sam."


	4. Chapter 4

**Thin Lines  
** Chapter 4

 _AU of 'In The Line Of Duty' & 'Family'._

* * *

" _He does not want Rya'c. He wants the Shol'va, the traitor. He wants Teal'c."_

Sam kept silent. _Apophis_. Jolinar had been very interested in her memory of events on the hataks, and had spent considerable time picking those memories over for details. Somehow, Sam wasn't surprised Apophis had turned up alive; Jolinar wouldn't have been either. He was a bad penny… a cockroach. A _keklel._ She stilled, hearing in her mind an echo of Jolinar's mental 'voice'. Just an echo. It _had_ to be just an echo.

"… So, Colonel, you have a go. Get Apophis if you can, but the prime directive of this mission is to bring Teal'c's family back to Earth."

Sam's attention snapped back to General Hammond. "Sir," she blurted out on the heels of Jack's sharp 'yes, sir', "Permission to rejoin SG-1 on this mission?"

Silence hung over the table for a long handful of seconds as they all stared – Hammond and Jack thoughtfully, Teal'c in stoic gratitude and the rest in surprise.

.s.g.1.

As Sam waited in the gateroom, the chevrons locking one by one, she concentrated on keeping her hands still, or at least not visibly shaking. She'd expected her request to be refused, expected to have to argue and even plead. But Hammond, after those agonisingly long seconds of silence, had given permission and moved the briefing right along into planning.

The churning blue vortex spilled out and back and settled into the familiar and wondrous ripples of the quantum nature of the event horizon translated into human scale. Jack trotted up the ramp and twisted the container he held so it would break open when it hit the ground on the other side. A gentle underarm toss sent it light years. Jack then pulled down and adjusted his gas mask as Bra'tac and the rest of SG-1 – including Sam! - joined him and they all followed the container to Chulak.

.s.g.1.

"It is less than 200 paces away. I know it well. I have made a map." Frotac gestured to the scroll he has just unrolled on a table for SG-1 to look at. "This is the main corridor. My place of work is here, in the Hall of Recording. The guarded room is at the opposite end."

It was all wrong. Sam listened to Teal'c and Bra'tac comment about its isolation and the little-used near-by entrance; all truthful and it was exactly why it was all wrong. "Sir," she started, addressing the colonel. "It's a trap."

The three jaffa all frowned at her and before Jack could speak, Bra'tac shook his head. "I do not see it. There is no way for there to be extra guards hidden in this section; they cannot stop our rescue."

"Carter?"

"It's too easy," interjected Isaac. "Teal'c you said it back on earth. You, not your son, are Apophis's target. So it's _got to be a trap_."

"The trap isn't around Rya'c, sir. It's most likely between us and the stargate; our rescue of Rya'c is just the trigger that will set it off by giving Apophis proof that we're here, on the planet." Sam could see the colonel turning over the idea in his mind; his usually well-camouflaged intelligence showing in his eye's razor sharp expression.

Teal'c had dropped his gaze back to the map, his expression the tightly controlled mask that had kept his true feelings hidden from Apophis for the many long years before SG-1 showed up. "You are correct, Captain Carter. There must be a trap and if it is not around Rya'c, it must be somewhere else."


	5. Chapter 5

**Thin Lines  
** Chapter 5

 _AU of 'In The Line Of Duty' & 'Family'._

* * *

Stay and try or leave and give up. Teal'c would not leave and SG-1 would not leave him. They had talked over possibilities for hours, considering scenario after scenario of what might happen.

Now they waited as Bra'tac walked confidently up to the guards. The zat'ni'katel was comfortable in Sam's hand; more familiar than the earth weapons she'd handled near-daily for years. _There_. Three guards down, two by her hand, one by the colonel's. Daniel and Isaac had been just a little too slow.

Only human.

She monitored Teal'c's take down of the last guard of Rya'c's prison and the colonel's efficient lock-pick-via-explosives out of the corner of her eye as she focused the majority of her attention on the corridors leading deeper into the heart of Apophis's palace. Knowledge of exactly where they were, where each path led was crystallizing in her mind.

" _Help, guards! Help me!"_

Sam turned back towards the cell where Teal'c was reaching for Rya'c even as the boy pulled away from him.

" _Get away from me! Shol'va!"_

This corridor was not a dead end; there were more serpent guards on the way.

" _Help, Guards! The traitor's here! Help!"_

She fired while the guard was still aiming his staff weapon but Rya'c slipped from his father's grasp and ran away from his rescuers; Sam flung herself after him, one hand catching a hold of his sleeve only to be confronted with more than a half dozen more guards, their staff weapons already charged.

For one split second, she knew she was about to die.

Then her mind was shoved aside, her eyes flashing even as her body moved, somehow evading the burn as super-heated plasma flashed close enough to singe her clothing. _Jolinar!_ she yelled, her shock at the abrupt reappearance of her symbiote's presence snapping into white hot rage.

.s.g.1.

Jolinar had been slowly climbing back to consciousness for over a day but when Samantha stood in deadly peril, she exploded into full awareness. Reacting on pure instinct, she seized control and kept them both alive. The child – _Rya'c. Teal'c son. Apophis's pawn_ – wrenched away, scuttling for cover behind the guards as Jolinar flung herself and Samantha into a doorway, firing the zat'ni'katel expertly from its meager cover.

" _Carter!"_

The shouts behind her marked the distress of Samantha's team who saw her pinned down; more guards were appearing and the space between them was thick with weapon's fire. **"** **Go!"** she yelled back, not hiding her changed voice. **"** I will take another **way!"** Taking advantage of the gap formed by the guards she had zatted, she darted forward and then down another passage. Serpent guards fired after her but did not pursue.

There was no nearby exit in this direction but Jolinar did not want an exit. She sifted rapidly through the edges of Samantha's memories, wincing away from the anger she felt from her host. The hostility stung and unwilling to confront it, Jolinar thinned the line between her present actions and the unforgivable just a little more by suppressing Samantha's consciousness. She had an opportunity, one she had long since given up any real hope of: Apophis was within her reach.

Jolinar carefully avoided thinking about what the Tok'ra council would say were they here to ask for permission: she would just have to beg forgiveness instead.

As she anticipated from Samantha's memory of Frotac and Bra'tac's reports, she met no one as she silently wove her way from store rooms to service rooms and via little-known connecting doors and short cuts through the (abnormally deserted) goa'uld section of the palace to approach the grandest – and gaudiest - of the rooms. In normal times, she would have been seen a dozen times, by slaves and guards and goa'uld. But even considering his losses – two _hatak_ , a painful wound but far from crippling – this palace was far emptier than it should be.


	6. Chapter 6

**Thin Lines  
** Chapter 6

 _AU of 'In The Line Of Duty' & 'Family'._

* * *

Jolinar stripped his _kara'kesh_ from Klorel's unconscious grasp and secured him in one of the teltac's smaller storage lockers. She would not trust it to hold a more dangerous goa'uld – but Klorel was an embarrassment even to her. Going to the controls, it was the work on seconds to rekey the rings and lock out the other remote – undoubtedly Apophis's – from accessing them. Activating the auto-pilot, she slipped out of the cloaked ship and listened to its slow lift off before it departed to hover some twenty _khet*_ above the palace.

Stepping over the still shape of the jaffa she had zatted on the way up, she silently made her way back down the stairs. This time, she took the turn that led to Amaunet's quarters. They were shut up, empty in a way that spoke of a long absence and Jolinar filed that little detail away with care. It took several minutes to locate Amaunet's spyhole into Apophis's main audience chamber but it was worth the wait.

"… _**conquer evil and forgive transgression. Witness…my most loyal subject… Rya'c, son of Teal'c!"**_

" _My father is not a hero. He is evil. He turned away from our god, our people, even his own family. He is a Ha'taaka!"_

Listening to the broadcast, Jolinar pondered the possibilities. She thought it unlikely Teal'c and SG-1 would be captured by vigilante jaffa roused in such a way, although she doubted Apophis would complain if they were. Undoubtedly there were yet more layers of plotting… but she found it hard to care very much. Rya'c had plainly been brainwashed in some way; there were a half dozen methods that Jolinar could recall Apophis using in the past and if it wasn't the simplest option, she couldn't help him.

Apophis had finished his broadcast and ushered Rya'c out of the room. Jolinar's gaze narrowed. Why was Apophis attending to the child personally? She dug in her memories and identified what was beyond the doorway as a minor meeting room and weighed up her options.

Samantha wouldn't forgive her if she didn't consider the welfare of Rya'c and SG-1.

With an aggravated sigh, she left her hiding place and ghosted through unnaturally empty passages to another entrance to that meeting room. Cautiously peeping around the curtain, she saw a starry-eyed Rya'c sitting on the floor at the feet of Apophis and… the first other goa'uld besides Klorel she had seen here.

"… **the teeth. Do you understand, Rya'c?"**

Rya'c's worshipful, adoring, assurances disgusted Jolinar. She had placed the other goa'uld now; he was a microbiologist.

A shout of alarm and the sound of a staff weapon arming came from ten feet away.

She whirled, activating the _kara'kesh_ to smash the jaffa against the wall before darting aside as the curtain was obliterated. Less than five cubits** apart, she and Apophis regarded each other for a minuscule fraction of a second before the twin blasts of force from the _kara'kesh_ collided. The resultant explosion threw both of them backwards; Jolinar was the first to recover and she hastily retreated.

Apophis shouted for his jaffa before attempting to follow her - Jolinar ducked through another doorway to the audience chamber and reduced it to rubble behind her. She had seconds; she used them to deal with the guards; most of those who escaped the first deadly whip of power fled and a second blast took down the rest.

 _Power._

Sam had been oblivious since moments after Jolinar's re-emergence but with the symbiote's attention on controlling wild storm of energy in her hand, Sam woke to lightning flooding her veins.

It was terrifying.

It was exhilarating.

They were gods.

* * *

* _khet_ ; ancient egyptian unit of length, equal to 100 cubits or approximately 52.5m. (Wikipedia) 20 _khet_ = 1.05km / 0.65 miles.

** _cubit_ ; ancient egyptian unit of length, example measures vary but going with consistency with _khet_ , 5 cubit = 2.6m / 8.6 feet.


End file.
